This is beyond outrageous and absolutely ludicrous.
Protections for people who want to kill preborn babies has been out of hand for a while, but it ramped up to ludicrous speed in New York when a panel of judges decided it is illegal for people to hand out pamphlets near abortion clinics. Their reasoning? If thereâs a delay of âone secondâ in which someone must deviate from their path on the way to kill a child, thatâs obstruction and violates protections for abortion access.
You canât make this up. In a world in which some states protect the rights of âprotestersâ to block traffic and cause ambulances and other emergency vehicles from reaching their destinations, the act of handing out pamphlets causes far too much harm for the radical left to accept. Itâs a backwards world.
Pro-life activists are fighting back. According to Bob Unruh at WND:
A petition has been filed that asks the full 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to re-hear a dispute over counselors who offer help to abortion-bound women outside an abortionistâs business in New York.
The move comes after a panel of judges from the court went rogue, calling it a âphysical obstructionâ under the federal FACE Act, which requires access to abortion businesses, when a counselor hands out a leaflet.
Or when a patient must âdeviate slightly from their pathâ and is delayed by âone secondâ in going into the abortion business.
Or when a patient must âwalk aroundâ a counselor.
Or when a driver stops his or her car voluntarily, and rolls down a window to communicate, and is handed a leaflet.
And when there is any âeven minor, inadvertent contact with a patient or âescort,’â the court said, that would be âuse of force.â
âA person commits âharassmentâ under a local ordinance if she continues speaking, even for a moment, with a person who has indicated even implicitly that he or she does not welcome the message. The court decided that such an implicit indication has occurred where a person remains silent or declines to receive printed information,â a legal team at the Thomas More Society explained.
The battle over First Amendment rights for peaceful, pro-life advocates erupted several years ago over actions by Brooklynâs [email protected], whose members, and their pastor, Rev. Kenneth Griepp, originally were targeted by now-disgraced former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.
A federal lawsuit was brought against Griepp and nine members of his congregation in June 2017, and accused them of harassing abortion-bound women outside of the Choices Medical Clinic abortion facility in Jamaica, Queens.
That came after the attorney generalâs lengthy targeted surveillance campaign âproduced no evidence that they violated the law,â the legal team said.
But Schneiderman labeled their speech âharassmentâ and asked the court to declare it to be âobstructionâ under the Federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, the team said.
âThe FACE Act specifically exempts constitutionally protected advocacy from its prohibitions,â explained Thomas More Society Senior Counsel Stephen Crampton. âWe argued that almost the entirety of the attorney generalâs case consisted in prosecution for just such protected expressive activity. The district court agreed, rejected the credibility of the stateâs witnesses, the merits of the stateâs arguments, and the request for the injunction itself.â
After a sexual abuse scandal forced Schneiderman out of office, his successors, first Barbara Underwood, and then Letitia James, continued to persecute the pro-life activists, the legal team said.
The lengthy trial was âmarked by notorious moments. The owner of the Queens abortion facility â one of the biggest and oldest in the country â called pro-life advocates the âAmerican Taliban.â A prosecution witness falsely accused the church members of violence, but her testimony was later shown to have been lifted from an article about the actions of other people at a different abortion clinic several years earlier,â the legal team said.
In a 2018 decision, U.S. District Judge Carol Bagley Amon of the Eastern District of New York, denied the stateâs request for a preliminary injunction in People v. Griepp et al.
But then this year, the appeals court reversed, adopting the radical pro-abortion agenda presented by the state earlier.
Crampton explained that if the attempt to completely silence the pro-life advocates is successful, the abortion industry will be filing similar cases across the nation.
The radical left goes out of their way to make sure as many abortions as possible can happen. This isnât about obstruction. Itâs about the left preventing life-saving information from reaching the hands of would-be baby murderers.
So the 1st amendment is now illegal… got it! Hell NO!